Targeted Delivery of Small and Macromolecular Drugs

Site-specific drug delivery and targeting attracts much research interest from both academia and industry, but because of the many challenges faced in the development of these systems, only a handful of targeted therapies have successfully made it into clinical practice.

Focusing on the delivery technologies that utilize both systemic and local routes of administration, Targeted Delivery of Small and Macromolecular Drugs brings together field experts who summarize current progress and discuss novel ideas currently being explored to overcome these challenges.

The contributors discuss the most promising strategies for drug targeting and also examine targeted drug delivery platforms and technologies at various stages of clinical and preclinical development, including:

• Active targeting
• Nucleic acid delivery and targeting
• Intracellular/organelle-specific strategies
• Prodrug strategies
• Organ or tissue-specific drug delivery
• Drug-polymer conjugates and micelles
• Stimuli-responsive systems

The book demonstrates why targeted delivery is one of the most exciting contributions pharmaceutical sciences can make to drug therapy.

Ajit S. Narang works for the Bristol-Myers Squibb, Co. in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in the biopharmaceutical aspects of drug delivery. He has more than eight years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in the development of oral dosage forms and drug delivery platforms. In addition to the Bristol-Myers Squibb, Co., he has worked for Ranbaxy Research Labs (currently a subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo, Japan) in Gurgaon, India, and Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals (currently a subsidiary of Wockhardt USA LLC, Parsippany, New Jersey) in Vernon Hills, Illinois. He has more than 35 publications and three pending patent applications, and has contributed to the development of several marketed drug products.

Ram I. Mahato is a full-time professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee. He was a research assistant professor at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City; a senior scientist at GeneMedicine, Inc., The Woodland, Texas; and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Washington University in St. Louis, and Kyoto University, Japan. He is an author or coauthor of 79 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and has edited/written three books. He is also a special features editor of Pharmaceutical Research and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Drug Targeting, Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, and Transplantation and Risk Management. His research includes delivery and targeting of small molecules, oligonucleotides, siRNA, and genes.